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I never seem to be able to finish my laser engraver/cutter from broken DVD-RW drives project (inspired by Groover’s pocket laser engraver) because I keep opening new DVD drives and keep finding reasons to go on tangent mini-projects. Most of those mini-projects are brought about by my admiration of the amount of useful parts a DVDs has (even a broken one, apparently) and some are caused by specific challenges each new opened drive brings. So, at some point I opened an HP SDVD8821H DVD R/RW/RAM Drive and found this laser diode inside:

It’s a weird looking laser diode (LD) that is mounted in the same case with the photodiode arrays which makes for simplified optics but I did not have any housing for this shape/size diode. By the way, if anyone reading this knows a professionally made housing for this type of LD, please post a comment with the reference, I would greatly appreciate that. The diode is just slightly smaller than your more standard 9mm LD – it’s smaller diameter is 6.50mm and the larger diameter is 8.25mm so it fits neither 5.6mm nor 9mm standard size housings.
This made me think that I may not be the only one stuck without a proper housing for a laser diode and I decided to see what it would take to build a housing for a laser diode out of parts available only in the disassembled drive itself and in a local hardware store. Here is what came out
Read the rest of this entry »

The earlier post about repairing the Lights of America 7200LED-BN lights has generated quite a few comments and provided for a lively discussion but I end it at a rather pessimistic note: ” you can repair it now but eventually the light will fail again”. That’s because this has been my experience with all lights I’ve repaired so far. They have 24 original LEDs and after just a few hours of use another LED inevitable burns out.

Encouraged by one of my visitors, CharlySays , I decided to investigate the issue further and see if anything can be done to increase the useful life of these lights.  Besides, the lights have been dark for almost half a year now and I was ready to remove them from under the cabinet and possibly replace with mini CFL lights of a similar form factor.

Keep reading for the results of the hacking exercise:  Read the rest of this entry »

Let me make it perfectly clear: if you see these sold in Walmart or elsewhere, stay away! This horrible product’s UPC is 755277720037 and the full part number is 7200LEDBN3VP. These are 120V-60Hz 2.5W (35mA) white LED “under cabinet” lights (“luminairs” as the manufacturer calls them) made in China and marketed by Lights of America, Inc. of Walnut, CA.
The manufacturer touts these as saving energy, linkable and longer lasting accent lights. I agree with the first two points but the “longer lasting” is a very relative term here. Let me put it this way: some (not all) did actually last longer than I was unpacking them but none lasted longer than 10 hours. And a couple were simply DOA (dead on arrival). Below is my collection of broken “Lights of America” LED lights. Read the rest of this entry »

No electronics lab can go for long without a robot eventually making its way in. Well, in my lab there is approx a dozen. Most are Scorbots by Eshed Robotec (Intelitek, Depco and there may be other names under which they were sold) These robots are usually rather old and by the time you get them they have been through a couple of generations of middle school students. But they were built solid and many survived, even if in need of repair. This is what this post is about Read the rest of this entry »

Well, this is the first post at Elabz.com. We plan on making this site a diary about electronics projects and a repository of tools and downloads for the fellow electronics enthusiasts. Please come back soon for more info.